I was thinking the other day about comic books based on television shows. I know there's a Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic (never read it, never saw the TV show so didn't see a point), and there's a Dr. Who comic, and possibly others I've not heard of.
It's not a new thing--in the 60s there were comics based on different series ( such as the Gold Key titles, Star Trek, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, etc. I don't think they were very good, and I'm pretty sure they weren't all that closely tied to the actual show although I could be mistaken there (not that they had the same concept of canon or continuity that exists now back then). I remember a Battlestar Galactica series in the 70s, although I don't recall much about the quality--apparently it didn't make much of an impression on me.
But I think the whole thing now where the comics are considered to be, more or less, a part of the main continuity is new. I think some of the Buffy books are actually supposed to be part of their regular continuity, and if I were a Buffy fan I'd likely want the book if that were the case. (Not sure about the Dr. Who books.) I don't think there's a long history of this. My brother used to read Star Trek novels, and probably has enough of them to insulate a small house, but I don't think anyone ever thought they were more than fun extra stories that probably didn't "really" take place--and if those weren't part of regular continuity, comics certainly wouldn't have been either.
I don't know whether I'd buy a comic based on a favorite TV show these days. It'd depend on the sort of show--I wouldn't be interested in, say, a CSI comic, but might be in a Torchwood book. I think I would be more likely to want it if the stories were considered "canon." I'm not sure why that should make a difference, but I think it would.
3 comments:
The Buffy comic is season 8 that never got aired for the tv show due to it being canceled. It's the same writing team, including Joss Whedon. Ditto the new Angel: After the Fall comic, which is season 6. Except that they can do more "sfx" in comics than on tv, it's supposed to be what they would have aired had the shows kept going. So rather than being adaptations of tv shows, these comics are continuations.
There were other Buffy-related comics that were based on the show, but dealt with other characters (Fray, the future Slayer) and out of continuity stories. Whedon also did a Firefly 3-part comic story that came between the tv show and the movie Serenity and there's another comic min-series for Firefly/Serenity in the same middle time period due out this year.
Comics are therefore providing a way to keep the Whedonverse going if it can't be on tv.
My understanding is that only the Joss stuff is Canon. Other comics are not made by the creators so no dice.
Angel: After the Fall and Buffy: Season 8 (which Joss has scheduled for 49 issues, last I read) are canon, even if he doesn't write all the issues, same as he didn't write all the tv episodes.
Fray, the future slayer, is as I recall, canon. Some of the other tie-in comics might or might not be canon, depending on what Joss had to say about them. I didn't read them, so I don't know.
The Firefly/Serenity comics are canon, meant to bridge the gap between the show and the movie.
If Joss approves the writers/stories and/or plans them for others to write, they're canon as much as the ones he himself writes. According to the editorials, etc.
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